Best shut-off valve for weep?

[2Biz]

I checked one of my bays this morning and I'm weeping 18oz per minute. That volume puts out a pretty good stream @ 40 psi.

 

[Dirt]

View attachment 331 Heres what my weep setup looks like. I only have 2 bays, so theres not much there. It uses cold city water, no weepmizer. The pressure regulator is right after the solenoid valve. Then comes the gauge. I run only about 10 PSI of weep down to about 20 degrees without wind. If it is colder, I'll take that up to 20 PSI.
One thing you might want to check, as far as only 1 or 2 bays freezing, is your check valves. In the pic its on the left side, under the short handle ball valve. I've had them not open and freeze up a bay. To check them, run your pump, with the weep system on. Then turn the pump off and go to that bay and see if it is weeping. If not, then the check valve is stuck closed. Sometimes they can be borderline, meaning sometimes they open, and sometimes not. These need replaced most importantly because they will work when your there. Then right when you leave and a customer uses that bay, they wont work and that bay will freeze.

 

[slash007]

View attachment 331 Heres what my weep setup looks like. I only have 2 bays, so theres not much there. It uses cold city water, no weepmizer. The pressure regulator is right after the solenoid valve. Then comes the gauge. I run only about 10 PSI of weep down to about 20 degrees without wind. If it is colder, I'll take that up to 20 PSI.
One thing you might want to check, as far as only 1 or 2 bays freezing, is your check valves. In the pic its on the left side, under the short handle ball valve. I've had them not open and freeze up a bay. To check them, run your pump, with the weep system on. Then turn the pump off and go to that bay and see if it is weeping. If not, then the check valve is stuck closed. Sometimes they can be borderline, meaning sometimes they open, and sometimes not. These need replaced most importantly because they will work when your there. Then right when you leave and a customer uses that bay, they wont work and that bay will freeze.

I tried clicking on the attachment and it says invalid link. Pardon my ignorance, but if a pressure regulator is used, would that mean that the weep shut-off valves stay wide open and the amount of water weeped is just controlled by the regulator? I will look in to the check-valves as well. Thanks.

 

[Dirt]

I do need help with the pic. Yes, the valves stay wide open. I really only use the valves to shut one bay off if I haf to change a gun or nozzle or something like that. Oh wait, sometimes I use them to mess with the weep washers.

 

[slash007]

I do need help with the pic. Yes, the valves stay wide open. I really only use the valves to shut one bay off if I haf to change a gun or nozzle or something like that. Oh wait, sometimes I use them to mess with the weep washers.

My other car wash apparently uses a pressure regulator. I have only had it for six months, so I wasn't too familiar with it. That explains why all the shut off valves were wide open What would you guys recommend for pressure for a 5 bay wash? I think it's at about 25 psi now and the tri-foam and brush all weep as well. Thanks.

 

[2Biz]

I would think you'd want to run small needle valves to each bay. That way you could dial in each bay, the farthest bays would need to be open more than the bays closer to the ER. I'm running 40psi to everything in the ER.
I also couldn't imagine running without a weepmizer.

For my 4 bays, running 100% of the time will use 720 gallons of water in 24 hrs. Running a weepmizer between 32° and 36° uses about 72 gallons a day and @ 25° it will use about 360 gallons a day. The weepmizer doesn't run @ 100% untill it gets down to about 14°. I should add, I only weep my HP Guns. I use winter methanol mix in my FB and have a Washer Fluid Injection system for my Tri-Foam.

Its going to get down to 5° tonight with wind chills well below zero here in Southern Ohio. Its definetly going to "Test" our winterizing systems....

 

[slash007]

I would think you'd want to run small needle valves to each bay. That way you could dial in each bay, the farthest bays would need to be open more than the bays closer to the ER. I'm running 40psi to everything in the ER.
I also couldn't imagine running without a weepmizer.

For my 4 bays, running 100% of the time will use 720 gallons of water in 24 hrs. Running a weepmizer between 32° and 36° uses about 72 gallons a day and @ 25° it will use about 360 gallons a day. The weepmizer doesn't run @ 100% untill it gets down to about 14°. I should add, I only weep my HP Guns. I use winter methanol mix in my FB and have a Washer Fluid Injection system for my Tri-Foam.

Its going to get down to 5° tonight with wind chills well below zero here in Southern Ohio. Its definetly going to "Test" our winterizing systems....

The regulator that I have installed has these specs:
Set:30psi
Range 10-35 psi
max: 35 psi.

It is a Watts regulator. It was set at 30 and when the weepmizer kicked on it dropped to about 23, so I raised it up to the 35psi that is said was max. Guess we'll see what happens.

At my other car wash without a regulator, today I set all bays to weep between 18-21 oz. per minute. I couldn't wait and checked on them an hour ago with the temp at 15 degrees and two bays had already frozen. The two bays that froze were running at 20 and 21 oz. when I checked them earlier, so not sure if weep amount was the issue. I switched over to hot water hoping that the other bays would hold up. Not going to go above freezing here for 5-6 days, so I will have to manually thaw the frozen bays and the less I have to thaw out the better. Not sure what else I can do to prevent these freeze-ups.

 

[2Biz]

Freeze-ups suck! Plain and simple!

It was 8° this morning when I stopped and checked the wash before heading off to work. All 4 bays were weeping fine. Earlier in the season, I froze twice, same bay, and temps were barely below freezing. I changed out the gun and that seemed to fix it. I didn't make any other changes, so that had to be the culpret. You sure you don't have a tiny piece of dirt or carbon blocking the tip. I've had that problem too. The gun seemed to work ok at high pressure, but would eventually block the tip when weeping. Something for you to check out.

Do you have trough heat?

 

[slash007]

Freeze-ups suck! Plain and simple!

It was 8° this morning when I stopped and checked the wash before heading off to work. All 4 bays were weeping fine. Earlier in the season, I froze twice, same bay, and temps were barely below freezing. I changed out the gun and that seemed to fix it. I didn't make any other changes, so that had to be the culpret. You sure you don't have a tiny piece of dirt or carbon blocking the tip. I've had that problem too. The gun seemed to work ok at high pressure, but would eventually block the tip when weeping. Something for you to check out.

Do you have trough heat?

My other four bays were still weeping this morning, so not sure if changing the water to hot did the trick or if it was just luck. My trough isn't heated, but that is because I really don't have one. This is an old wash and all lines are accessible from the bay, just tucked behind a 12" piece of wood that runs across top. Not winter friendly at all. Most of my freeze-ups when it is just a bay or two are caused by rust clogging the tip, but I don't see any in this case. Are there any signs to look for that indicate that the gun could be the problem?

 

[2Biz]

When I had a clogged tip from rust or carbon, the spray pattern would be slightly distorted, but only noticable if you were looking for it. And as mentioned before, if water is syphoning out the gun between weep cycles, you could have a faulty weep gun or check valve allowing air in the hp line...

 

[Randy]

Where’s the rust coming from? You shouldn’t use any steel pipe or fittings in a car wash. I don’t understand why you’re getting all these freeze ups if your weeping 21 oz. of water per minute. Did you change the settings on your Weepmizer? What is your weep water pressure at this car wash?

 

[GoBuckeyes]

We weep 10-12 oz of hot water through all foam brush and high pressure hoses regardless of how far from the equipment room. We run our weepmiser at default settings with a 1 minute cycle time. If a bay freezes, which rarely happens, its because something is wrong, not because of the set up. Our setup is good for whatever we get here on the north coast, zero or below.

 

[slash007]

Where’s the rust coming from? You shouldn’t use any steel pipe or fittings in a car wash. I don’t understand why you’re getting all these freeze ups if your weeping 21 oz. of water per minute. Did you change the settings on your Weepmizer? What is your weep water pressure at this car wash?

Not sure where the rust is coming from, all lines are the flexible black hoses and the fittings are brass. When I take the lines apart to thaw them out, I see a bunch of rust in the ends and usually scrape it out with a small flat screwdriver or sometimes just change the line. My weepmizer is set on default except that I changed the cycle time to 30 seconds instead of 1 min. Not sure what my weep pressure is, I don't have a pressure gauge on the weep line. This is a very old car wash, built in 1980 and is probably not the least bit shielded from the wind. I didn't see any rust in the lines I thawed out today, so that can't be the issue. I haven't hooked them back up yet but will probably put on a new gun on each before I do. My other car wash has a weepmizer at default settings, weeping cold water, weep pressure was set to 35psi last night and so far no freezeups this year. Another 9 degree night tonight so I'm hoping for the best. I am very tired of the freeze-ups at my problem wash and am willing to do whatever is necessary to eliminate them.

 

[2Biz]

I have 4 bays, one is outside with the boom 15 feet above the ground. No sides except one side is the side of the building. The other three bays face North with no doors.

I'm with Randy, if you're weeping 20 oz's of water, you definetly shouldn't be freezing up.

When you put the lines back on, make sure you run water through the lines before putting the guns back on. This should purge anything out of the lines if anything is in them.

Good luck, its going to be another cold one.

 

[2Biz]

One other thing I just thought of. And BTW, my wash is much older than yours....It was built in the 60's! Remodeled a few times...My Mark VII pump stand is about 30 years old...

Do you have water tanks with gravity feed or city pressure to your pumps? Maybe dirt is getting past your pumps. Check your tanks for dirt/grit/sand if its gravity fed.

I had a 2" meter in my ER that I changed out with a 1" meter...Saved me a hundred bucks a month on my water and sewage bill...Thats another story...Anyway, the 2" meter (2" mains) had cast iron flanges. When we took off the flanges, the 2" lines on either side of the meter was almost completely blocked, with corrosion and crud. It was only where the cast iron and copper came together. They call it "Galvanic Corrosion". This surely caused problems with the previous owner.

So, maybe you could trace all your lines back to where they come in the ER and make sure you don't have any cast iron flanges or anything that is not brass or copper. If you do, I'll guarantee you have corrosion. Sorry for a long post, it just came to mind and thought it might be something you could check...

 

[I.B. Washincars]

What about the inside of his water heater tank?

 

[slash007]

I haven't posted lately because unfortunately I have been thawing out bays for the past few days, but I after changing check valves and guns, I am pretty sure my problem is dirty lines. I was wrong about having all rubber hoses. In my ER there is a section of galvanized lines that run up the wall then tie into a rubber hose that runs out to the bay. A rubber hose leaves the pump, t's into a copper t that also attaches to the weep, then a 5 foot section of galvanized runs up the wall where it then attaches to an elbow that has a rubber hose on the other end that runs out to the bay. I have no idea why it was setup that way, but I am guessing that is the source of all my rust. What do you guys think? I took some pictures and will try to attach them.

 

[Randy]

Now that really sucks!! it’s pretty obvious that someone didn’t know what they were doing when they installed that galvanized steel pipe. I’d take out the galvanized steel pipe and replace it with high pressure hose if you’re getting rust flakes clogging up the guns. But not being there and seeing what you’ve got makes it’s pretty hard to make a good call on what needs to be done. You might want to pump -22 windshield washer solvent into the system at night and wait until it warms up when it gets real cold, I’ve done that before.

 

[2Biz]

Yea...I bet when you take the galvanize pipes apart there will be lots of crud. Galvanize or black iron pipe should not be used in the ER.

When I bought my wash, I had trouble with the float valves in my water tanks. It had cheap Clevelands installed. Anyway, the Cleveland float valves were connected to PVC pipe with 1" threaded galvanize pipe 3" long. When I took it all apart, the galvanize pipes were 75% blocked even though it had plastic on both ends. So even without galvanic corrosion from dis-similar metals the pipe was still blocked with crud/rust. I don't know how it worked, obviously not very good...I Replaced the fittings with brass and put in Walters Float Vlaves and haven't had any problems since.

By the looks of your photo, I'll agree with Randy. Someone installed your system cheap...Somehow you need to get rid of those Galvanize pipes and replace with hi pressure hose. My hi pressure hose goes from the cat pumps all the way out to the bays. No piping in the middle...

Just noticed something...Is your weep system fed from galvanized pipe?

 

[slash007]

Yea...I bet when you take the galvanize pipes apart there will be lots of crud. Galvanize or black iron pipe should not be used in the ER.

When I bought my wash, I had trouble with the float valves in my water tanks. It had cheap Clevelands installed. Anyway, the Cleveland float valves were connected to PVC pipe with 1" threaded galvanize pipe 3" long. When I took it all apart, the galvanize pipes were 75% blocked even though it had plastic on both ends. So even without galvanic corrosion from dis-similar metals the pipe was still blocked with crud/rust. I don't know how it worked, obviously not very good...I Replaced the fittings with brass and put in Walters Float Vlaves and haven't had any problems since.

By the looks of your photo, I'll agree with Randy. Someone installed your system cheap...Somehow you need to get rid of those Galvanize pipes and replace with hi pressure hose. My hi pressure hose goes from the cat pumps all the way out to the bays. No piping in the middle...

Just noticed something...Is your weep system fed from galvanized pipe?

I spoke to the company that built it and they told me that the owner really wanted to cut corners wherever he could. The weep system is the long brass pipe that you see running behind the galvanized pipes that go up. Luckily most of the bays have hose running out to them so I just have to change a 5 foot section of galvanized to hose. The two closest bays have galvanized all the way, so I will just run a hose all the way to them. I was looking to order the hoses and wasn't sure what the difference was between MPE and MSE? I use 1/4" MPE hoses for my spray guns and most of the hoses that run to the bays are 1/4" so I was going to go with that size. Would 1/4" be ok? From the looks of the setup, the galvanized has an adapter down to 1/4" on both ends so I should be able to just screw the new hose right in.